Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Schizo Tim

Starting pitcher:
JC Parsons

Two Tims showed up tonight. Normally that would mean bad news, but when you are Tim Lincecum, any version of yourself is way better than average. Not really fair is it?

It wasn't for Oakland. Each Tim was too much for the A's as he picked up his SEVENTH victory, tossing his second complete game this year. His final line, quite impressive - seven hits (including a solo HR), 2 walks, one run, and 12, count 'em 12, strikeouts - does not capture how weird Lincecum's dominance was. After cruising through the first four innings by striking out seven A's, Tim became remarkably hittable and put eight baserunners on during the next three innings. For a normal human, this would be a big problem. Not Wacko Tim, he would just all of a sudden decide he needed a double play grounder, and sure enough...he got 'em! To finish off this gem of pitching dissociative identity disorder, Lincecum sliced throught the last two innings, using 8 pitches in the eighth. Just when you thought maybe the A's were making the adjustments - like swinging at Tim's first pitch often, look for other teams to follow suit- Lincecum went back to blowing them away. Freaky even for the Freak.

If memory serves (and it rarely does, these days) Tim was at 92 pitches at the end of the seventh, after all those baserunners (first pitch swinging baserunners). He wound up at only 108 for the game. I remember thinking that maybe the relievers need work and that there is no need to let Tim go 9 every frickin game just because he can - but then he neatly disposed of the side in the 8th and 9th.